


Now I've Got to be There for Her Son

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Moving On, Post-Episode: s05e04 Lars' Head, Spoilers for Episode: s05e18 A Single Pale Rose, technically takes place during Episode: s05e05 Dewey Wins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 16:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15934487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: “Rose,” you begin. “A long time ago,before, you…told…me not to discuss…” (Your hands twitch. You clench them hopefully and they desist.) “certain matters. And I understood—understandwhy. But your child…I might need to…”A lump catches in your throat as you recall Steven’s face as he stood on the Aquamarine’s ship, how he’d disappeared behind its doors, the desperate pleas that had had to stay in your head, because you couldn’t get them out of your bound-up lips,It was me! It was me! It wasn’t him, or Rose, I stabbed Pink Diamond, please take me in his place!You close your eyes, force yourself to move past it. This, this request, is the crux of this whole enterprise; you need to get the words out. “To protect him, to take care of him, I might need to tell him someday. Please.”In the aftermath of Steven sacrificing himself to Homeworld, Pearl reimagines and reevaluates.





	Now I've Got to be There for Her Son

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a repost of something I posted about a little over a week ago. I was unsatisfied with it, and took it down to tweak it, and am much happier with it now. 
> 
> Basically, I've been thinking a lot recently about Pearl's character arc, and how the season four finale must represents a shift for her--even if that development is slightly overshadowed in light of a lot of the other revelations we get about her in season five.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

It’s not until the sun peeks through the windows of the house that Steven goes to bed—still in his clothes, filthy with sweat and Homeworld dust, but for once you don’t insist that he change. And it’s only once he starts to snore that any of the four of you make a move. Garnet rises first, with a pregnant glance up at Steven, then disappears into the Temple without another word. You wonder if she's gone to consult her Future Vision, if she feels the same uncertainty you do about how you're all going to move past this, and wants assurances that you will. Amethyst rises too, makes a display of stretching, and then mutters something about needing air before wandering out the door of the Beach House. Out the window, you see her shapeshift into that ridiculous Puma form and begin pounding at the ground, spewing sand in all directions.

You all have your own ways of coping, you suppose. The terror and madness of the past several days has worn on you all, you can see it reflected in Garnet and Amethyst’s faces, can only imagine what your own looks like. 

Greg turns to you. “Mind if I crash here tonight?” 

“Of course not.” You produce a throw blanket from your Gem to hand to him as he lays himself on the couch, though you suspect that he won’t sleep any more than you will. Greg’s carefree attitude, you’ve learned in the months since your visit to Empire City, stops at Steven’s safety—even if in Steven’s presence he attempts to maintain the façade—and he’d been as shaken the past several days as you. He doesn't want to be separated from Steven for a moment—his way of coping.

You don’t want to be separated from Steven either, not now, so you climb the loft and sit down on the foot of his bed. (He’d implied, a while ago, that he didn’t like that you watched him sleep, and you’ve tried to respect that, but tonight—or, rather, _today_ , by now—you can’t help yourself. You think he’d understand, possibly make an exception.)

( _You thought you’d lost him._ )

His chest rises and falls. Breathing. The mark that an Organic—that a human—is still alive. _Stars_ , he’s still alive. And _safe_ , and _here_ …

But what _might_ have happened…what _almost_ happened…what _would have_ happened if not for luck or a fluke of circumstance, keeps playing over and over in your Gem’s eye. The protocol for execution by shattering is awful enough to consider, but for him, the supposed shatterer of a _Diamond_ , it would be insufficient! Homeworld would invent some other, more torturous way to slay him…and if they discovered that he was in part _organic_ , there would be no end to the atrocities they would be able to inflict on him…

But it _didn’t happen_ , you remind yourself, taking a deep, grounding breath and laying a gentle hand on Steven’s too-exhausted-to-stir head as reassurance. 

(But it could have, and then he would have been killed— _mutilated_ —for something _you_ did!)

( _It should have been you._ )

You’d tried to offer yourself, _you did_ , while you bobbed on the water, to beg the Aquamarine to take you in his place, or at least to take you _with_ him. There’d been a trial, Steven said? You could have— _would_ have—stood in front of the Diamonds, quelled your trembling knees, and projected exactly what had happened from your Gemstone, the conversation you’d had with Pink before it had. And then they could have shattered you, _maimed_ you, if they wanted…but they’d have let Steven go.

But you hadn’t been able to get the words out. The instant you tried (desperately, _desperately_ tried), your hands flew to your mouth and bound it shut. And even though you’d fought the order harder than you ever had before, with everything you possibly had in you, it had been to no avail. 

You’d been silent. They’d taken him away.

You sigh, your hand tightening in Steven’s hair as you do so. You hadn’t thought as much about the order in millennia as you have these past several months. For so long, you hadn’t needed to; it had been a nearly-forgotten detail of your existence _before_ , the one you and Rose left behind together, irrelevant and unwanted. And even after you’d lost Rose, it lingered at the edge of your memory, so distant from how Garnet and Amethyst remembered her, from how you chose to remember her, and from the image of her that you wanted to impart to Steven, that it might not have been there at all. 

But since the incident on the Moon Base, the utter shock and hurt in Steven’s eyes when that Ruby had mentioned Rose and the shattering, his frankly justified search for answers since, you have longed, even tried, to tell him the truth, to quell that understandable pain— _It isn’t true, Steven, Rose wasn’t a shatterer! She wasn’t perfect, but whatever else she might have been, whatever else she might have done, she didn’t, would never shatter anyone._

But, of course, you couldn’t. 

And now, that inability, your insufficient attempts at countering it, has led to _this._ Steven had twisted what he thought he knew into unwarranted guilt, and then into the worst kind of nobility, had _sacrificed_ himself for something that he hadn’t done, that _Rose_ hadn’t even done…And he could have, had almost been…

If only…why hadn’t Rose…why hadn’t _you_ …?

You rise, close your eyes and sigh again, know what you have to do if you’re going to be able to be what Steven and everyone else needs you to be moving forward, even if you don’t want to. 

( _You are your own Gem_ , Garnet had said. _You control your destiny. Not me, not Rose, not Steven. But you must choose to be strong_.)

( _I understand_ , you’d responded. _I can’t give up anymore_!)

This isn’t what you expected strength to have to look like, but there it is. Clenching your fists, you walk down the stairs and into your room in the Temple.

* * *

It’s been ages since you’ve used projection this way, used the Imagination capabilities you were built with to their full capacity. You possibly haven’t since…well, since _before._

And to _re_ imagine this, a conversation that already had happened, it would admittedly be preferable to be in the same location that it had occurred in actuality. But that had been Rose’s room, and that wasn’t an option. Besides, you need privacy, and you own room is the only place you can ensure you will have it.

You breathe, ignoring the knots in your stomach, and then conjure the image from your Gem: Rose laying on her back, her lower torso—which, though you didn’t know him by name at the time, contained Steven—nearly bursting. You kneel next to her head, just as you did then, and, just as you remember, she reaches for you. You grip her hand. 

When she’d announced that the baby was immanent, after Amethyst fetched Greg and you and Garnet had helped her into her room, Rose had said that she wanted to speak with each of you individually. When you entered, you’d been shaking, struggling to keep the tears out of your eyes, to keep your voice steady. You remember this now, looking at the hologram version of her, and it’s only slightly easier to do it after all these years.

“My Pearl,” she’d said. (You give voice to this, her, now.)

“I’m here.” 

“You’ve always been so good to me, Pearl. You’ve taken such good care of me. Always.”

“Of course I have, my—” (You’d blushed deep blue then. You don’t blush now. But your hands twitch and the tears fill your eyes all the same, just as they did then.) “Rose. I…”

“I know.” (If she had known, _how_ could she have done this, left you like this?) “Pearl, will you take care of the others for me?”

“Of course.”

“And the child?”

At that point, you’d hesitated, and you replicate it now.

“Please.”

And this is it, the moment that needs to be different this time. Last time, you’d bowed your head, said _Of course I will, you’re going to be a part of them!_ , then broken down into ugly sobs. Laid your head on her chest, and she’d rested her free hand on your scalp. You’d closed your eyes. It had been the last time she’d…the last time you’d…

You shake your head slightly, to rid yourself of the image. This isn’t why you’re doing this. You sniff, take a slow breath, blink the tears away, then straighten your back. 

“Of course I will,” you say again, but this time matter-of-factly, with a calmness in your voice that you don’t quite feel, even after all these years. “But I need to ask you something.”

Now, you have to choose your words carefully; part of the point of this exercise is to say these things out loud—to see how they feel in your mouth and how you feel after saying them—and if you’re not precise and delicate, that won’t occur.

“Rose,” you begin. “A long time ago, _before_ , you… _told_ …me not to discuss…” (Your hands twitch. You clench them hopefully and they desist.) “certain matters. And I understood— _understand_ why. But your child…I might need to…”

A lump catches in your throat as you recall Steven’s face as he stood on the Aquamarine’s ship, how he’d disappeared behind its doors, the desperate pleas that had had to stay in your head, because you couldn’t get them out of your bound-up lips, _It was me! It was me! It wasn’t him, or Rose, I stabbed Pink Diamond, please take me in his place!_

You close your eyes, force yourself to move past it. This, this request, is the crux of this whole enterprise; you need to get the words out. “To protect him, to take care of him, I might need to tell him someday. Please.”

You hold your breath.

Silence. 

You open your eyes, and gaze at the projection of Rose. She looks at you blankly, and you realize: your powers of imagination can’t extend this far. You’ve never spoken to her this way. Even after you no longer called her _my Diamond_ , you’d never contradicted her, even on the rare occasion when you’d wanted to. You have no idea if she’d have reversed the order, have given you permission…

You have no idea what she’d have said at all.

You let the image blink away and hug your knees to your chest. Of course, the goal hadn’t been to actually _reverse_ the order—that would have been impossible with just an image of her that you’d constructed. But you wanted to see if you could’ve asked her. If she would have given permission, back then, if only you had had the courage or the foresight or the selflessness to _ask_ …

And if she would have, you would be able to move forward now and attempt to tell Steven what he needs to know—even if you don’t yet know how—like you know you need to, like he deserves, like you _want_ to…

You inhale, suddenly.

( _You control your destiny_ , Garnet had said. _Not Rose_.)

( _She wouldn’t have wanted this_ , Steven had said. _But I do._ )

( _This isn’t about Rose,_ Garnet had said. _From now on, everything has to be about Steven_.)

Everything you ever did—everything you ever _chose_ to do, since you acquired free will—you did for Rose, for her sake, and gladly. And even after she was gone, disappeared to give form to the baby that would one day grow to be the boy you love in his own right, you did everything in service of her memory and her name. Without her here, that resolution was all you had to cling to. And since Steven’s birth, to devote yourself to him—his growth, and his happiness—felt like an extension of this same project. It was what you wanted, but more importantly, it was what _Rose_ asked you to do, what _she_ would have wanted. 

But, if the events of the past several days have made anything clear, it’s that some of the things that Rose might have desired weren’t what was best for Steven. And if you have to decide, you realize suddenly, you need— _want_ —to prioritize him over your memory of her, however painful it is.

And, belonging to nobody, you're free to make that choice.

You're _free._

You exhale slowly, letting the weight of this revelation wash over you as you do, allowing it to seep into your Gemstone. You breathe again.

You loved Rose Quartz, were devoted to her—both as your Diamond and for what she became after—with everything you had in you. You love her still, and will continue to do so, you know, as long as you exist. And maybe this isn’t what she would have wanted—or maybe it is—but you have to be there for her son. For Steven. Your choices, your priorities, all that you do now...it has to be for Steven.

He needs to know everything. And you don’t know how you’re going to tell him, but you will. Somehow, you’ll devise a solution.

You push yourself off the ground, wipe your eyes, and will the door of your room to open. You want to be there when Steven wakes.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please consider leaving a comment!


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